So I came across this Wikihow site the other day.  It details 120 ways to cheat on a test.

Does this say something about:

a) kids these days?

b) human nature?

c) the inevitable descent into absolute amorality/immorality for which the internet will prove responsible?

d) a revolution in human thinking that I’m too old and prissy to understand?

e) all of the above?

My favourite part is the introduction:

Cheating is considered dishonest. It counts as stealing and lying. There are some cases, however, where cheating on a test might be argued to be acceptable. Sometimes there are tests that are the result of politics, rather than practicality.

The wiki is in fact helpful for teachers, whose minds will pop at some of the instructions.  Write on your hands with skin-coloured gel ink?  Use a compass to scratch answers into the cover of a metal binder?  Tape a paper inside your hood and then put your hoodie on backwards? (Seriously? Like no one will notice?) Score an eraser down the middle and write notes on the inside?  Wouldn’t studying be easier?

Many of the methods involve using a cell phone.  This brings up the inevitable question: in a world where everyone has a cell phone with them at all times (everyone except, ahem, me, as I would prefer to save my money and NOT be reachable every second of the day, thank you), does it make sense to give tests for which a quick internet search or a text to a friend will turn up an answer?

I know that if I cared to look, I’d find plenty of things online that would horrify me more than this wiki.  I know there’s no use in being morally outraged about school cheating – students who cheat find this outrage amusing.  I hear students in the hallways all the time saying things like, “Why didn’t you just cheat, you idiot?” or “This calculator is perfect for cheating – the bottom slides right out.”

What’s a teacher to do?  Is cheating more rampant than ever, or is it something that always has been and always will be?  I – most of us, I think – approach cheating as a moral problem, as if we could solve it by teaching students right from wrong.  This clearly isn’t working.  Is it school, and tests, that have to change?

Image by David Hartman